SERENA WILLIAMS goes for her record-equalling 22nd Grand Slam title in the Australian Open Final this morning and only the brave or foolish would bet against her.

Williams has been in top form in Melbourne, not dropping a set in her march to the final where she faces German seventh seed Angelique Kerber who is playing in her first Slam final.

Kerber took the scalp of Victoria Azarenka in the last eight before despatching British No.1 Jo Konta but is as big as 6-1 at BetVictor to land the title.

Williams – who leads the head-to-head 5-1 with the sole defeat coming four years ago – is just 1-6 at William Hill and is likely to get the job done in straight sets, which pays 1-2 at Unibet.

On the oche it’s the PDC Masters with Michael van Gerwen looking to bounce back from his World Championship failure by retaining his title against a star-studded line-up.

MVG is 9-5 title favourite at 10bet followed by double world champ Gary Anderson (7-2, BetVictor) and today’s opening-round action features tasty ties including Robert Thornton against Dave Chisnall and Phil Taylor v Jelle Klaasen.

There’s loads more highlights on a packed Saturday of sport so let’s hear all your tips and chat and good luck with your bets.

Tubingen have found some form of late but they still only have 12 points in 19 matches while EWE Baskets Oldenburg are in 6th position with 24 points in 18 matches.

Recent H2H between these two teams have been quite high scoring with Oldenburg winning 4 of the last 5 meetings with the scorelines of 103-72, 98-89, 94-86, 60-96 and the one they lost 94-82. 4 of the 5 were over this line and I think we’ll see around 165 to 170 with Oldenburg winning by 5 or more points.

A big part of Jenkins game is his maximum scoring. He should accumulate more than Wade in the match but hopefully James can also chip in with some of his own. The line is set reasonably low as Wade can have a reputation for not being a power scorer but as he has shown in the past, when he is on song he can certainly rack up the 180’s. Jenkins is capable of hitting two in a leg and has been on 9 darters on multiple occasions, which is good when the line is low and its a best of 19 format.

Some really good stuff again from the NBA last night, almost perfect but Smith didn’t get his total (that’s really why I don’t like prop bets so much … cause Cavs sailed it) so we’re again one leg short for the thread acca to land but @hunter 4/1 did come in. Nice call on the Heat @raoul-duke and Blazers total @huggybear518 and all the other winners (captain, ayeright, shotty, …), the thread is getting some consistent NBA shouts which is nice to see.

@jordan, the point of the thread acca is to put everyone’s most confident pick in it and try to get the most value from them. I’m not trying to look for an excuse, accas are always risky, I’m only stating that I don’t like prop bets just like I don’t like tennis bets (or darts bets, or whatever …) because the bet is only relying on one man doing the job (and that’s not as reliable as a whole team doing the job … at least that’s what I think).

If you’re confident about a prop I’m still gonna put it in the acca because your knowledge on them and success rate is way higher than any other bet on the thread anyhow.

Napredak are a decent side this season with 8 wins and 9 losses. They are a solid home team with a 7-1 record. The quality difference here is big and even though Vojvodina are fighting to stay away from the relegation zone, Napredak have their own aspirations to get into the playoff spots. Voj are currently 12th with 6 wins, just 2 wins on the road. Napredak last time in Krusevac were defeated against Vojvodina but this season they are in great form at home and I think they’ll win this encounter by 9 or more.

Afternoon gents. No full house last night. Mainly because I only had one bet JR went cold only shooting 20% from the field and I was out so couldn’t get on anything else. Well done to any winners! Same again tonight? Perhaps. Might stick something up later but difficult card tonight.

Before this stretch of 7 home games in row, Pelicans head coach came out and said that this could be the perfect spring board for a play off push, the ambition was to win all 7 games, and they’ve done pretty well so far won 4 and lost 1, in a tight game against the Rockets.

When Sacramento came to town, the Pelicans were banged up and I figured that would be 2 losses. But I was wrong.

Tonight they welcome the Nets, who are on a back to back coming off a loss to Dallas, and they were poor, shooting 35.9% from the field. Nets away record is bad too, 4-17 (19%).

The incentive is there, Pelicans will want to come out of this with 6 wins and 1 loss. Evans and Davis are listed as ‘questionable’ so could play.

Just seen a few of the winners. Nice one gents. Remember, you don’t have to take my bets, I don’t take any of yours and I do perfectly fine. I also wouldn’t use your bets as excuses and put your name next to them when they lost. Chin up we’re only human 😉

Van Gerwen is better in every department than Bunting. It’s likely he will hit a lot of 180’s, use cover shots well to bulk up his scores and when presented with finishes take them out quite comfortably. Bunting should struggle to say in range with Van Gerwen so applying the -3.5 handicap would mean that Bunting would need to win seven legs against MVG for the bet to lose, something which I cant see happening.

Taylor and Klaasen are both good enough to win at least five legs each. So far this afternoon all the matches played have been really close affairs, the minimum number of legs won by a losing player was seven so I would’nt expect either Taylor or Klaasen to win only four legs.

– Grizzlies -3.5: The Kings have been playing really good but I really like the Grizzlies defense and the fact they’re playing at home.
– Raptors -3.5, Pelicans -3.5 (double): I like both to cover their spread, just taking a safer alternative.

21-9 to Djokovic 6-2 in slams, can Andy finally win an Australian Open?,
Everyone says no, but I say yes

Last year in the final Andy Murray made the cardinal sin of letting Djokovic get in his head, during the third set Djokovic was moving like he was injured, his body language was bad and Murray was sucked in,
This year Murray won’t make that same mistake
Everyone says Murray’s biggest problem is his second serve which is an average of 10mph slower than Novak, but I don’t see this as a problem
I still say he needs to open up on second serve and take some chances but he doesn’t have to do it all the time, one thing Djokovic doesn’t like is a player mixing it up against him.
Djokovic just brushes aside predictable players, only one player this tournament has really mixed it up against Djokovic this tournament and that was Giles Simon who took him to five sets and made Djokovic play 100 unforced errors.

Another thing Djokovic doesn’t like is players playing to his forehand

It’s also been mentioned that while Djokovic has had an extra day off Murray was playing a five setter against Raonic, I again don’t see that as a problem because when you look at that mat hit wasn’t a gruelling five setter, there were a lot quick points and you could see it hadn’t taken a lot out of Murray.

The first set is also crucial, when Djokovic has won the first set he is 17-0
When Murray has won the first set he is 9-4
I am not a fan of these stats because players can change their Attitude in games, it’s obvious it affects Murray when he goes down 1-0 against Djokovic, but I honestly think what happened in last years final has made Murray stronger.

Now stats, both players are even when I comes to first serve but Murray has served more aces in 24 of the 30 meetings with 2 tied and 4 for Djokovic and the odds of 8/13 skybet & william hill are attractive but I don’t back odds on

A part of his game that Murray has improved is winning points on his second serve, this is going to be a big factor if he can keep it up, 68% on second serve against Raonic is big, he has also improved his second serve return and this is where I think he is going to hurt Djokovic because the Raonic second serve is about 20mph faster than Djokovic’s and Murray won 55% of points on the Raonic second serve

Johnb, I hope you’re right but I have my doubts.
I agree with you about one thing – Murray has to win the first set.
However, having read you piece I will cover my 10pts antepost tip on Djoko.
PS. Well done on Hibs getting to the Final – I imagine Greg is wrecked by now.

Yeah I got on in-play on Warriors -12.5 when Warriors where down 17-10 and brought it back immediately and managed to build a 25 point lead. I was sure the bet was won, but easy layups were being missed and a ton of turnovers being made in the end squandered the lead to the point of a level score with Barnes rescuing the win at the end.

It makes you wonder though, they were in a commanding league and in my mind are the best team in the nba at the moment playing possibly the worst and they just scrap a result like that, when last week they showed how good they really were by dominating the cavs!

I know its hindsight and all that lads, but really, what would possess anyone to bet on that game? What do the Warriors have to prove going to the worst team in the league and covering a huge spread? Nothing. Game means zip all to them other than the win. Huggys favourite line is ‘doesn’t matter how much they win by, still get the same % when they do ‘. Would have had little to no motivation going into that one and it showed when they were up by so much.

Didn’t back them jordan but you can’t expect the best team in the league to have 9 more turnovers at one point than the team with the worst turnover rate in the league, i don’t expect to see the best professional in the world missing more lay ups than they score in a quarter. Lol i think i am more pissed off for paying btsports to watch that rubbish

Like I said mate. They probably came into that game knowing they were going to win and very nearly backfired. Up by 24 at one point and obviously thought it was done. Worst team in the league on the road with another game on the road tomorrow. Thoughts would have been elsewhere.

Hit the nail on the head there Jordan, can’t blame anyone but myself and fair play because all the thread didn’t really mention GSW, one or two comments about them but best of staying away anyway off to bed and hope for a super Sunday and watch West Ham in draw for FA CUP 5th round!!

Haha no mate just those bets that you can see. Funny you mentioned Howard though as I saw his PR&A at 26.5 @ 365 and thought it was a bit low, had already placed my bets, which aren’t looking too great.